The Superior Court denied a suspected drug trafficker\u2019s request to divulge the identity of the government\u2019s confidential informant who helped law enforcers build the case against him and two others.<\/p>\n
Associate Judge Ramona Manglona, however, granted Jesse Torres Flores\u2019 request for the disclosure of the net weight of the methamphetamine hydrochloride or \u201cice\u201d he allegedly possessed and trafficked.<\/p>\n
Manglona said the confidential informant should be entitled to the same protection given to informants involved in ongoing law enforcement activities during the preliminary stages of the court proceedings.<\/p>\n
The Attorney General\u2019s Office earlier refused to reveal the informant\u2019s identity to the defendant.<\/p>\n
The judge denied Flores on most of his request for information when he filed with the court a bill of particulars. The judge explained that the purpose of a bill of particulars is to have the criminal information sufficiently inform the defendant of the nature of the charge against him to enable him to prepare an adequate defense and possibly plead double jeopardy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sufficiency of the information is not a question of whether it could have been more definite and certain, but whether it contains the elements of the offense intended to be charged,\u201d Manglona said, citing a precedent federal court ruling.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither a defendant nor the government can obtain a list of prospective witnesses simply by couching that request in the form of a motion for a bill of particulars,\u201d the judge added.<\/p>\n
Manglona also denied Torres\u2019 request for other information, including the specific location where the ice was allegedly seized.<\/p>\n
The judge, however, said that the defendant still has the prerogative to file a similar request during future stages of the court proceedings. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Manglona granted Torres\u2019 request to obtain information on the net weight of the ice allegedly seized from him, saying the illegal drug\u2019s quantity has a bearing on a defendant\u2019s sentence upon conviction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe details as to the quantity allegedly possessed by defendant Torres is vital to his preparation for his defense, and this quantity must be provided to him,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Superior Court denied a suspected drug trafficker\u2019s request to divulge the identity of the government\u2019s confidential informant who helped law enforcers build the case against him and two others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}